Railway rail joint



May 5, 1931. F; L. RE QUA 1,803,768

RAILWAY RAIL JOINT Filed Oct. 3, 1 930 INVENTOR:

FREDERICK L. RE QUA BYQA ATTORNEY.

Patented May 5, 1931 FREDERICK L. RE QUA, orsaiv rnancisoo, cAL romvIA RAILWAY RAIL some Application filed October 3, 1930. Serial No. 486,133;

This invention relates to improvements in railway rail joints.

The principal object of the invention is to prevent the disintegration of rail ends. Another object is to reduce and distribute the resistance or impact force of rolling stock passing over rail joints.

Another object is to eliminate the traction wave in the tread of the rail adjacent its ends.

Other objects and advantages will appear as the description progresses.

The rolling and pounding action of rolling stock in passing along the tops of railway V rails, whether welded or hardened or not, tends to elongate the tread'portion. This causes a burr to curl over the ends of the.

rails at each joint. When the rails expand under sun temperature the ends abutt each other. As the wheels on a rail approachthe end of the rail, that end is depressed below the level of the end of the next following rail.

If the opposingfburrs overlap, one or both of them are eventually dislodged by .the rise and fall of the rail ends under the weight of traffic, as described.

The elongation of the tread portion tends.

to harden and stratify it longitudinally, causing it to become scaly. When these end burrs are dislodged, as stated, they pry up a portion of the contiguous tread, leaving the top surface of the rail rough and pitted.

The wheels of succeeding rolling stock thereafter drop into these fracture pits and 1n leavmg them, bounce away and again strike the rail some little distance beyond. A wave or depression is thus formed in the rail tread several inches from the mutilated end. I

This condition in turn becomes causative, so 40 that following an initial surface fracture the rail end rapidly depreciates and becomes unsafe in a relatively short time, due to crystallization of themetal of the rail. This results in impact wear on wheels and rapid wear on the joint bars and bolts In addition thesevere vibration occasioned by passing trains has an enhanced tendency to loosen the nuts on thejoint bar bolts,

It has been common practice to variously 5 bevel the ends of the rails where they meet in the ointtoform a transverse notch in the track, so that when the ends of the rails are forced together by expansion the tread portionsdo' notmcontact. This notch prevents the disruptiondue-to the dislodgment of the burrs, but it does not prevent the formation of :the burrs northev impact shock when the wheels hitthe highgrail ends, which :itnis one of the objects of this invention :toaccomplish:

In this specification and the :accomp any-ing drawings the invention is disclosed in. its preferred form. But it is to be understood that it isnot limited to thi'sform because it may be embodied in other form-s. It is also to be understood that in and by; the claims following the description :ittis desired toxcover the invention in whatsoever-form it may be embodied.-

In the one sheet of drawings :7 f s Fig, 1 :isa side elevation diagrammatically illustrating one conventional form of notched track." 1 4 Fig. 2 is asimilar viewof a modified form of notch.

Fig. 3 is a notched'rail joint operating Lunder the usual conditions to be found in practice, the condition being slightly-exaggerated to better illustrate the effect. ,Fig. 4 is' a similar view of a rail end. diagrammatically illustrating the effect of traftie on any rail end held in an inefficient rail joint, with the resultant burr and traction waves caused by traiiic.

Fig. 5 is a view similar to Fig. 3 illustrating the advantages of this invention, under comparative conditions.

' The method and construction of the present invention are best illustrated'in Fig. 5, wherein the two alined rail ends 1 and 2 are spaced apart the required expansion distance 7 3. These ends are joined by any suitable form ofjjoint or fish plates 4l fitting be tween the rail heads and bases 56 and drawn togetherby the transverse bolts 77. The disadvantages of the forms shown in Figs. 1, 2, 3, it are largely the result of the sharpangles at 8 which present no inclined angle of approach for thewheel 9. In consequence the-blow struck by the Wheel" amounts to several tons of impact concentrated at the apex 8. Such a condition, especially as in Fig. 3, rapidly upsets the end of the rail tread, see Fig. 4:, forming the hump 10 which causes the wheel to jump upward and descend at about the point 11 with another concentrated impact which gradually forms a depression in the rail tread, as explained above. Traific being sometimes in both directions, both ends of the rails soon present this mutilation, so that the track adjacent the rail end becomes asuccession of traction Waves as indicated, the pisadvantages of which are sufliciently maniest.

All of these disadvantages are eliminated by modifying the rail ends with an arcuate chamfer 12, as shown in Fig. 5. The ductile tread of the rail flows into the are at 12 Without forming an overhanging burr as at 13.

The incline plane presented by the segment at 12 causes the Wheel 9 to depress the higher rail end 1, without the reacting rebound and jumping previously described; thus very simply eliminating the many disadvantages of the angular notches 8 above described.

The simplicity of this arcuate chamfer 12 is out of all proportion to the many advan tages following its application in this art.

This chamfering is very easily accomplished by a portable shaper or grinding Wheel clamped to the track at the rail joints.

Having thus described this invention what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent 1s:

1. A rail joint with the abutting rail ends arcuately chamfered transversely of their tread portions.

2. A rail joint with the tread portions of the rails curved downwardly at their abuttin ends.

fil testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 29th day of September, 1930.

FREDERICK L. RE QUA. 

